


Rise Up

by scar-and-boomerang (Y_Woo)



Series: ATLA Daemons AU [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Badass Toph Beifong, Blindness, Earth Rumble VI, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, The Gaang - Freeform, Toph Being Awesome, adventures with the Gaang, toph-centric, you know the drill you've been here long enough for this series admit it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Y_Woo/pseuds/scar-and-boomerang
Summary: "One would think that as a supernatural, spiritual being who was capable of human speech and intelligence, and had an instinctual knowledge of all possible animal forms, the idea to seek out species with the gift of the other senses came ingrained into the subconscious, but no such luck. It wasn’t until Toph was four or five and her daemon tried out echolocation for the first time as a bat, that they had unlocked a new world of possibilities."Growing up in an Avatar-verse where all the people are born with a soul-animal companion know as a "daemon", Toph and her equally blind daemon navigate growing up in an overprotective family, earthbending their way to championship, and saving the world with the avatar, her new friends, and a duck, a fox, a mongoose, and a goldfinch.





	1. In the Prime of my Life

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any ATLA characters or storylines, or the concepts and world building done by Philip Pullman. All daemon character names and characterisation are my own. Title of story, chapters and the quotes are taken from the lyrics of 'Rise Up' by Imagine Dragons, I do not own that either.

* * *

I'm bursting like the Fourth of July,  
So colour me and blow me away.  
I'm broken in the prime of my life,  
So embrace it and leave me to stray.

* * *

Whichever form Toph’s daemon took, he had always been blind. In their infant days, this had been something which distressed him greatly. One would think that as a supernatural, spiritual being who was capable of human speech and intelligence, and had an instinctual knowledge of all possible animal forms, the idea to seek out species with the gift of the other senses came ingrained into the subconscious, but no such luck. It wasn’t until Toph was four or five and her daemon tried out echolocation for the first time as a bat, that they had unlocked a new world of possibilities.

Her father’s daemon named him Jiaheng, but between the two of them, Toph had always called him Yoyo. Neither of them remembered where the name came from anymore, but it stuck, and somehow remained appropriate throughout the years.

Though Toph herself had learnt earthbending from the original teachers to become proficient enough to ‘see’ through feeling vibrations, Jiaheng perferred to rely on his sense of smell or sound, his favourite forms being snakes, bats, and any nocturnal rodents. Toph, though, liked the idea of him being a mole to honour her badgermole friends, or a spider, sensing the surroundings through vibrations, just like her.

“Spiders don’t really _sense_ vibrations, you know.” Jiaheng had said one day, curling himself as a worm around Toph’s wrist just to annoy her, so small he was barely able to circle the six year old’s arm at its skinniest point, “just the itty bitty things that hit its web. Not to mention I need to _make a web.”_

“I just don’t like it when you fly.” Toph said stubbornly, though the infant pitch was still evident in her voice, it already had a sort of sassy bite to it. “I can’t sense you.”

“I’m sure you can if you tried.” Jiaheng accused, “I _am_ your daemon after all.”

“Not sure it works like that, Yoyo.” Toph bit back, “I _see _through earthbending. How can I sense you when you’re not touching any earth? And get _off_ me, you’re slimy and gross.” The little girl shook her arm violently, slinging her daemon not-so-gently onto the floor in a faint splatter, the vibrations of which made her lips quirk up gently.

“Oh so first you want to sense me, and now you don’t? Real logical, Toph.” Jiaheng picked himself up off the floor and wriggled his way back onto him human, attentive to the temperature of the surface so as to not touch her skin this time. He didn’t enjoy being smashed again the ground.

“Quit being a baby, Yoyo.”

* * *

“Widen you stance, Toph, and make sure your elbow is at a ninety-degree angle.”

Toph pulled her feet apart and held her arms back, as per Master Yu’s instructions. Bringing her fist forward in front of her, she opened her dominant hand and pushed her palm out to complete the basic kata they’d been working on that morning. In front of her, the large boulder crawled a couple centimetres forward.

“Very good, dear! Next time, make sure your knees are bent flexibly but firmly, to absorb more strength from the earth and channel that through your chi, and out of your pushing palm.”

For her, earthbending lessons with her tutor at home had taught her more about acting and theatre than actual bending. Most her concentration went into how to make it look as if she had been putting all her strength into the movement, yet not sending the boulder flying across the courtyard as she was perfectly capable of doing.

She took her stance again, feet wide, knees bent, elbows back by her side, and launched an arm forward once more, adding a subtle slowness to the movement to help her control the speed of the rock but not detectable enough for Master Yu to suspect she wasn’t putting full effort into the exercise. When the rock rolled forward lazily, she pretended to groan in frustration.

“Now now, pupil, patience. It definitely went faster this time, that’s progress! Well done.”

Two sets of footsteps approached from down the corridors, on pair she recognised to be her father’s, and four more belonging to his well-groomed mountain goat daemon. Tensing silently, she fought the urge to not greet him before he had announced his presence as he walked closer to them, stopping beside her earthbending teacher, who bowed respectfully. Instead, she turned her concentration to another set of earthbending katas.

Finally, when Toph purposefully made her rock move faster and more forcefully than before - though only a little, calculated bit - her father cleared his throat, making his presence known.

“Father!” The little girl exclaimed in feigned surprise, turning her head in Lao’s general direction, missing the mark by just a small angle. Again on purpose, of course, as she knew exactly where every strand of hair in her father’s beard was.

“Well done, Toph. I’ve been watching you for the past couple of exercises, you displayed commendable attitude and determination in learning the moves.” Her father commented, and Toph noticed how he carefully avoided noting her skills or proficiency.

“Mr Beifong, Sir, if I may?” Master Yu interjected tentatively, continuing with more confidence after Lao’s nod for him to go on. “Toph has advanced significantly since she discovered her earthbending abilities three months ago, and has progressed more rapidly than most of my students, save for the occasional prodigies. You should truly be proud of her, Mr Beifong, Sir.”

Toph listened to this report with interest, knowing she didn’t appear nearly as good as her master described, she’d made sure of it. She’d only revealed her earthbending ability a couple months ago, that much had been true, pretending to “discover” them more than a year into learning earthbending from the gentle creatures in the mountains behind her parents’ back. But when he reported her progress, she could feel a slight tremor in the ground, which she followed with her feet through the concrete of the courtyard, up his legs, and settling in his lungs.

_Interesting._

“Hmm,” Lao pondered, reacting to this news. “That is indeed great to hear, I am very proud of you, Toph.”

There it was again, the tremor through the earth, only from under her father’s feet this time. Her face remained passive as she honed in on the particles of earth in contact with the man, receiving signals of the movement. Lungs, drawing deeper, more forceful breaths. Heart, pumping faster, frantically, irregularly. Legs, shifting subtly in discomfort.

“However, I do feel… concerned about the safety of my daughter during your lessons, Sifu.” Lao Beifong continued, and the tremors ebbed away slowly the longer he carried on. “As you know, because of her…condition, I could never dream of my daughter becoming a master in her art. To give her false hope and lead her on to attempt higher level… activities will only encourage her to be reckless and get hurt. For now, my wife and I would prefer it if you just lead her through the basics as a means to distract and enrich her life.”

Master Yu bowed deeply once again. “Of course, Mr Beifong, Sir, we will proceed entirely as you please and command.”

On the wooden railing lining the corridors around the year, Jiaheng, who had been resting on the beam as a salamander, twitched in the annoyance he shared with Toph. Not only were they talking about her as if she wasn’t there at all - _she was blind, not deaf!_ \- but her father had stated outright that he didn’t believe his daughter could amount to anything. Enrich her life? This was earthbending, not cross-stitching, and she was not some old lady in need of entertainment in a retirement home!

“What do you think Toph?” Lao asked, turning to address his daughter directly at last, “this doesn’t mean you can slack off in lessons, and I want you to try your best. But I think it’s the best course of action, for your own good.”

She wanted to jam her foot into the concrete in response, and knock her earthbending teacher into the air. _Never becoming a master?_ She could take on any master, even now. She had been learning earthbending from the original source, far more original than the stuck up, sycophantic old man her father hired. She wanted to yell that she did not want to be a helpless little girl all her life, and the more they shelter her away, the more potential danger they were putting her in.

What were they planning on doing, locking her away her entire life? Just because she couldn’t _see _the world, doesn’t mean she didn’t want to explore and navigate it in her own unique way. Instead of helping her search for a solution, her parents had been segregating and repressing her like a shamed disease.

_Don’t_, she heard Jiaheng’s voice in her head, though whether or not it was actually him communicating with her telepathically, or just Toph assigning a part of her own consciousness in his likeness, keeping her from doing something she would regret, she wasn’t sure. _They don’t know about the badgermoles, and you don’t want to lose that. Right now, you can still learn earthbending properly, but if you lose control, you might not get to ever again._

“Of course, father.” She answered, bowing her head in obedience as she knew her parents expected and wished her to. Her entire life at home, it seemed, was a big theatre class.

Lao grunted, a hint of affection in his voice. “Your mother and I love you very much, Toph, we hope you always know that. I’ll let you get back to your lessons.” He added, addressing her earthbending tutor, and then turning to leave.

_Love,_ sure, she had never doubted that. But there was no pride, no trust, no hope to it. It was like caring for a sick koala-otter cub knowing it was too weak to make it through its first winter - you smother it with affection and make it as comfortable as possible, but you don’t teach them the necessary skills to survive, fend for itself. It was empty, pitying love, and Toph could feel the weight of the sad gazes boring into her every day even if she couldn’t see her parents’ face.

A rough grip landed on her wrist and she jumped, irritated at herself for being too wrapped up in her melancholy to sense her teacher approaching. She fought the urge to shake his hand off her arm as he led her onto the patch of grass in the middle of the quadrangle. 

“Come on,” Master Yu said patronisingly, “let’s work some breathing exercises before we wrap up for the day. You remember your counts?”

“Yeah. You didn’t mean it when you agreed, did you? We can still do the advanced katas?” Toph probed, it never hurt to try roping more people into her ever growing _lie to her parents to unleash her full potentials_ campaign.

“You heard your father, young pupil,” Master Yu reminded her, voice unlike the honeyed, fawning tone he took on when Lao Beifong was around to hear it, “until he decides, you will stick to the basics to be safe.”

“Whatever happened to progressing faster than most of your students.” Toph grumbled as she took a seat on the grass, crossing her legs and bringing her palm, face up, to her knees.

“Your father is wise, dear,” her tutor lectured, “it’s not as if you will need the advanced set of skills as a necessity. Not to mention some requires visual coordination to be completed, which will be impossible for you to learn. No need to feel down, however. The disciplines and philosophies found in the most basic forms can be channeled into your life even without earthbending, and will come far more useful to you than advanced manoeuvres.”

_One day, she will prove them all wrong._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! My parents were going to name me Jiaheng at birth, and the nickname Yoyo to match, but alas, upon birth they discovered they predicted my gender wrong and they couldn't use the name. I figured I'd give it a place to go in this story as I am quite attached to it :)
> 
> Jiaheng (家珩) means "Jade of the family" and Yoyo (优优) means "excellence", a fitting name for the daemon of the best earthbender ever and one BAMF that we Stan :)


	2. Higher Elevation

* * *

I was hoping for an indication,  
I was seeking higher elevation.  
I've been shaking, waking in the night light,  
I've been breaking, hiding from the spotlight.

* * *

From the age of five or six onwards, Toph had been able to run circles around her babysitter. 

The poor lady was the daughter of a shopkeeper in the town, which meant while her family hadn’t been wealthy or powerful, they weren’t dirt poor or shady either. Her mother had made sure of this when she hired her to keep an eye on Toph full time, on top of existing servants to dress her, feed her, clean her, and her earthbending tutor at home.

So really, Toph decided, there was nothing to feel guilty about when she practically tormented Jing Ru with her roguish charms, she was getting paid a handsome amount to do nothing but lead her around the place and keep her company.

“Okay, you can drop me off here, I’ll meet you in the evenings.” She declared as soon as they reached the town square.

Toph got up early that morning, and set about politely and sweetly pleading with her mother to let her spend the whole day out in town with Jing Ru, who watched from the corner of the room, marvelling at how the little rascal she had trouble controlling when they were alone could put on such a convincing act of being a harmless and spoiled little girl.

By the time Poppy Beifong had agreed, strictly delivered her monologue of instructions to the babysitter, and ordered the servants to pamper Toph into respectability, it had already been high noon, as they set off together towards the small town just outside the view of their mansion.

“Miss, I don’t think you mother would approve.” Her baby sitter replied anxiously, writhing her hands. Toph noted that Jing Ru addressed her the way her mum had instructed - never give away the fact that she was a Beifong, but still use appropriate titles. Toph scoffed. _Wuss_.

“Well, my mother won’t have to know about this.” Toph said confidently. “Come on, Jing Ru, we’ve been hanging out for almost all my life now, that’s ten years. You know I can look out for myself.”

“if something happed to you, Miss…” The young woman pressed weakly.

“It won’t. Jiaheng will look out for me, and I’ll run at the first sign of trouble.” Toph promised, holding back irritation at not being able to reveal her proficiency at earthbending, not even to Jing Ru. “Speaking of, can you let my daemon out, please?”

Her babysitter hesitated for a while longer, before sighing in compliance. She bent down to open the small carriage that has been carried on her large dog’s back, and Jiaheng fluttered into the air as a bat, and latched himself onto Toph’s waistband, upside down.

“Thanks!” Toph grinned and waved her hand, already turning to trail off. “I’ll meet you back here around sundown.”

For the better part of the day, she wandered around the streets aimlessly. There weren’t much excitement going on, nothing she hadn’t not-seen before, but it had been a significant improvement over the suffocating, stiff atmosphere of the mansion.

Toph made it two streets out before bending down to take off her shoes, sighing contentedly as the sole of her feet made contact with solid ground, and stashing the carefully made and polished footwear in her sack. The world around her sprung to life with sharp resolutions as opposed to the fuzzy readings she could barely get by on when her toes had been confined inside. She could sense three people nearby, one sweeping the porch of a shop on the inside of the pavement, and the other two at opposite ends of a makeshift table by the road, immersed in a game of Pai Sho.

Toph walked on, imagining the strange glances these passers-by will no doubt cast in her direction along the way - a little girl well dressed and clearly from a wealthy family, walking down the pavement barefooted, with no guardian in sight, seemingly (pun intended) blind, and a furry bat dangling from her waist like a money pouch.

She stopped right in front of a breakfast stand, not exactly hungry, but eager to do something to alleviate boredom.

“What do you sell?” She demanded loudly, waving a hand in front of her face by way of indication that she was blind. 

“Jianbing Guozi, Miss.” Came the kind voice of an old man came from in front of the stand in reply, “pancake wraps.” 

“Alright, I’ll have one, please.” She decided as the old man set about making the wrapping on his hotplate. She could sense the displayed trays where each filling rested, though there was no way of telling what they consisted of. She could ask, of course, but where’s the excitement in that? Instead, she made a series of random jabs in the cage direction of each slot.

“And fill it with this, this, and this, and a little bit of this, and double servings of this.” Toph instructed. She monitored the movement of the chef to confirm that he had indeed followed her request to the letter, thought there was no way of telling his expressions to determine whether or not she made decent culinary decisions.

_Only one way to find that ou_t, she muttered to herself as she paid for the meal and took the cleanly wrapped, still-warm roll into her hands, and bit into it as she continued down the street.

An overwhelming taste of green onion filled her mouth and sprung up her nose, making her stop and wheeze with surprise. That must have been what she ordered double servings of, maybe not the brightest idea. Stubbornly, she chewed on, trying hard to pick out of tastes from the intense flavour of onion. Her efforts were rewarded with the sweet taste of bean paste (not nearly enough, should have asked for more than “a little bit”), and a healthy serving of eggs, fried dough-stick, and turtleduck meat.

“Enjoying yourself?” Jiaheng piped up from just below her hips, finally awake from his pseudo-nap (he couldn’t really sleep when Toph’s awake, but spends most of his time pretending like he could anyway).

“Could have been better, could have been worse.” Toph shrugged - a gesture she persistently carried out though its meaning was always predictably lost on her equally blind daemon.

By the time she finished her street snack, they were walking past what she could tell to be a large building. She heard suddenly the faint sound of stone crashing with stone underground, shaking the foundation beneath the paved surface of the ground. She perked up with interest.

“Psst, Yoyo! What do you think is going on down there?”

Her bat unfolded a wing lazily, and listened carefully for a while, before coming to the conclusion. “Some sort of fight rink, I think. I can hear cheers and grunts. People are earthbending, too.” Though not able to see, he could sense his human’s lips quirk up in a smirk.

“What do you say we work off that lunch we just had?” She asked excitedly.

“You do you.” Jiaheng replied.

* * *

“Do you have a ticket?” The guard at the door asked suspiciously when she approached him.

“Do I need a ticket to fight?” Toph questioned back, cutting to the chase.

“Alright kid, this isn’t some child’s playground. Run along.”

Toph stomped her feet in answer, causing a nearby flower parterre to completely disintegrate into the ground. Then with a swift but rigid movement of her arm, she raised up a small statue of herself on the same spot, complete with a dirt carving of Jiaheng as a bat.

“Do I look like I’m joking to you?” She challenged. The guard chuckled lightly, clearly still in disbelief of her skill against the fighters in the rink. Still, she had proven herself, and there were no rules against little children asking to be beaten up.

“Follow me.” He conceded, turning to walk through the door with Toph trailing him.

They walked through a winding structure of corridors and doorways, progressively descending through the floors underground. The deeper they got, the more Toph felt at home, submerged among earth and concrete structures and relishing in sensing everything not only below or around of her, but above her as well.

After a couple minutes of walking, they reached a room with lockers and benches. She could feel the collisions and vibrations in the room nearby, they must be close to the fighting rink.

“Little lady here wants to have a go.” She heard the voice of the guard grunt out to the two other guys in the room, both were men of large build, one had a hippopotamus daemon, and the other something equally large of a form Toph couldn’t recognise by shape. Jiaheng would probably know, but she didn’t care enough to ask.

“We’re not giving her any special treatment just because she’s a girl and a child, she can stay but don’t come crying to any of us when she gets hurt.” Hippo guy spoke up, accepting her challenge more easily than she expected.

“Good.” She said with confidence, “wouldn’t have it any other way.”

All three men chuckled. Hippo guy reached into the locker behind him and pulled something out, then a couple seconds later a clump of rough cloth hit her square in the face, smelling like cheap soap. “You’ll want to change out of that pretty dress.” He offered.

“Hey!” Toph yelled, “Don’t throw things at me, I can’t see them coming.”

This earned her full-on laughter from both the fighters. “When you get in the rink, kid, it won’t be clothes we throw at ya.” Not-hippo guy reminded her. Toph huffed, pulling the shirt over her head and slipping her silk robe off under it.

“Fair point.” She admitted. “So what is this… thing, anyway?” She asked, suddenly aware that she didn’t know the rules, the name of the activity, or anything about it at all besides the fact that it involved beating people up with earthbending.

“This is Earth Rumble VI.” Not-hippo guy explained, “Rules are simple. You fight another person with earthbending, one on one. First to knock your opponent off the earth platform wins.”

“Right, cool.”

“You can go next, if you want. Do you have a name you want to be announced as?”

Toph thought about it for a moment, the question taking her by surprise. Having been secluded in the house for all of her life, Toph Beifong was the only name she’s had. But she only had to think with her toes for two seconds to know that she couldn’t use that name for at least thirty-seven different reasons. Her fingers found Jiaheng, still tangled in her dress, questioning him silently.

“Uhhh, how about ‘The Blind Bandit’?” He supplied helpfully, Toph smirked, satisfied. 

“Love it, Yoyo. You’re so much better at these dramatics than I am. We’ll go by The Blind Bandit!” She announced happily, allowing herself to be led out of the room once again, by not-hippo guy this time.

“Good luck, kid.” Not-hippo guy patted her shoulder gruffly after whispering something to a guy as they reached the stadium, then turning to head back the way they came.

Another guy walked up towards her as soon as he left. “This way.” He said, leading her up a series of stairs to the edge of the rink, and stopped in front of a metal cage. “Your daemon in here please, they are not allowed to participate in a fight.”

Jiaheng, who had been fluttering above Toph’s head the whole way here, huffed indignantly, but still complied, ducking into the cage as the man clicked the door shut behind him. “As soon as you’re off the platform the door will open to let him out.” He assured. “When the gates open, you enter through here.”

Toph took her place behind the metal bars, listening keenly to the cheering crowd as she felt the other pair of gates open. Stepping through them was a man of medium build, tall, but not as buff as the two contestants she had met in the locker room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back your fighter, _Xin Fu!_” The announcer declared as the fighter mentioned raised his arms to pump his fist in the air, “And his challenger, a new addition to the crew,_ The Blind Bandit!_”

Toph had to admit, the name rolls off the tongue quite nicely, thanks to her daemon’s genius. The gates swung open at the mention of her name, and she stepped through. Instantaneously, the crowd’s noise stopped.

Toph stared down her opponent in the stunned and confused silence with her unseeing eyes, ironically regretting that earthbending did not give her the chance to see the expression the man bore. For a while, neither did anything as they stood still, facing each other.

“Are you planning on _staring_ me off the platform?” Toph asked sarcastically, loud enough to make sure the entire arena could hear her.

“Is this a joke?” Xin Fu demanded, looking around for the manager, “I’m not going to fight a little blind girl!”

“Awh, that’s too bad!” Toph said sweetly, before raising her foot to bring it back down to the platform, erecting a stub of earth right beneath her opponent’s feet, sending him flying off to the side. She swung her arm out to lift another wall of rocks to stop the flying man in his track, not wanting him off the platform just yet. She wanted a fair fight, and not win in two seconds flat by the element of surprise.

The crowd started cheering again, and as soon as Xin Fu landed, he let out a frustrated growl and made his first hit, evidently fine with not holding back anymore. Toph smirked to herself as she took her stance for the real fight that had just began.

* * *

She lasted seven minutes until she was tossed off the platform. At first she was able to get some really decent hits in, but as the guy loosened up and started to attack her with increasing force and frequency, she found herself struggling to register the flying rocks in time to dodge. The near missed started to come from her and not Xin Fu, until eventually a boulder connected with her side solidly and she rolled off the platform with a grunt.

The cage sprung open, and Jiaheng fluttered out.

“_Dude!_ That was awesome!” He yelped excitedly, circling her head. Toph dusted herself off, grinning from ear to ear as well. “_You_ were awesome! I heard every piece of stone that connected with the guy’s face and went _smack_!”

“I did too, Yoyo.” She said happily, “I’ve never felt more alive.”

They found their way back to the now-empty changing room, where she picked up the dress where it had been left on the bench and switched back into her fancy clothes. Hippo guy and not-hippo guy wandered in just as she was tying up her sash. 

“You were pretty good out there, kid.” Hippo guy complimented, voice laced with thinly-veiled respect and surprise.

“I lost.” She stated matter of factly. Not-hippo guy barked out a laugh.

“You held out for the better half of ten minutes against Xin Fu in your first match. That’s not something men twice your age and triple your size could boast. Take it and run, lady.”

“Call me Bandit, and I’m leaving.” Toph said, turning to make her way out. She paused, and almost as an afterthought, turned around to hold up the shirt she fought in, “can I keep this?” She asked.

“Depends, will we be seeing more of you?” Hippo guy asked, presumably shrugging. Toph pondered it for a second, before answering with a grin.

“Yes, though I won’t be seeing you any time soon.” She joked, making her way up and back to the surface of the ground.

* * *

By the time they reached the town square, Jing Ru was already standing there, craning her neck to search for Toph in every direction. She spotted her walking down the road, dress intact but tied lopsidedly, the impeccable bow knot in her waist sash now a bundle of random twists and loops, her face and hands covered in dirt and _was that a purple bruise blossoming on the side of her neck?_

“Oh my spirits! What happened?” Her poor babysitter demanded. Toph shrugged.

“Got into a small scuffle. Made some good friends in the process, though, so I suppose it was worth it.” She said nonchalantly. “Good exercise, too.

“You mother is going to have me murdered, Miss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jing Ru's name is written as 静茹 in mandarin and her daemon is a St. Bernard. The Jianbing Guozi (pancake wrap) is a popular street food in Tianjing, and is the Chinese equivalent of a crepe burrito, or something. 
> 
> This is all I got for y'all today, and it may be a couple days until I update again because I've got quite a lot coming up in life. If you leave a kind comment for me on any of my works in this series that you've enjoyed waiting for me for when I come back I will be very grateful!


	3. Turning Pages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey what's up you all the shot hiatus is over as I have sat my big exam (it went well!) and can spare writing time once again :) Thanks to all of you with the kudos and comments while I'm gone on all my stories! Please enjoy this chapter and keep democracy sweet feedback coming :)

* * *

I will always open up the door,  
Always looking up to higher floors,  
Want to see it all, give me more,  
Rise, rise up.

I was always up for making changes,  
Walking down the street and meeting strangers,  
Flipping through my life, turning pages,  
Rise, rise up.

* * *

It took a year and a half to beat every single Earth Rumble fighter in the rink and claim the title of champion (the last man standing had been not-hippo guy, whose fighting name Toph had learnt to be The Boulder on her second trip here, and his daemon that she couldn’t identify the first time round was a capybara), and one annoying little shi—_ boy_ to take it away.

He was light on his feet. In all her years of earthbending, she had never felt anything like it. It was like a feather, or a may-butterfly that Jing Ru had described to her, tapping on the water surface in a pond, barely making a ripple. It unsettled her that she could barely sense him.

More annoying was the kid’s insistence that he just wants to _talk_.

Toph wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a tactic or something, because where her earthbending was confused by his absence on the ground, his voice calling out to her definitely made up for it. Though her daemon was more competent in the hearing department, her own skills were sharper than your average twelve-year-old-human as well.

“There you are!” She called out after another plead from the other kid to wait for him to talk. _Does he not understand the concept of a _fighting_ rink?_ Frustrated and impatient, she bent another wave of rocks and attacked.

Something hit her square in the chest and she was tumbling off the platform. The shock of defeat was quickly washed away by the sound of the crowd cheering as the cage sprung open and Jiaheng tumbled out and fluttered around her head. She stood up and dusted herself off, muttering furiously.

“Hey, you okay? What happened?” The fruit bat asked.

“Fine!” Toph barked, clearly not fine, “It took me _ages_ to get that champion title and I’ve only held it for three months!” 

“You’ll get it back, you just have to beat the guy out, right? You’ve been bested before and still bounced back and gained the upper hand in the next fight.” Her daemon assured her.

“S’not what I’m annoyed about. I didn’t sense the hit coming at all.”

“Maybe it was too fast, and you were distracted.”

“Not likely. Not to be narcissistic or anything, but I’m too good. This is strange, almost as if what hit me… wasn’t earth.”

“Are you accusing your opponent of cheating?” Jiaheng pondered thoughtfully, “that’s a serious accusation. Besides, we’re blind, but the entire audience and the judge can’t be. If they used waterbending or firebending, someone would have protested. Not to mention you didn’t get wet, or burnt.”

The two began weaving their way out of the crowd and back home when the annoying, high pitched voice called out again behind her. Toph pointedly ignored the boy and stormed away.

“Is that the guy who just beat you? It sounds pretty urgent, maybe he wants to explain. Aren’t you going to answer?” Jiaheng pestered as he trailed behind his human.

“I don’t _talk_, Yoyo, I fight. Nor do I need an explanation. Next time I see him in the rink, he better watch out. Because we’ll chat, _with rocks._”

“Right. Fair enough.”

* * *

She didn’t have to wait until the next time at the rink. It was barely a couple hours later when she had ditched her babysitter and returned home, not being in the mood to stick around town any longer as per her usual routine, and changed into her fine clothes, when she felt the same, barely distinguishable footwork in her back garden. 

This time the kid had been accompanied by two others, neither of the three were of large build, though the boy who challenged and bested her was easily the smallest of the trio. Toph would wager that they were all children. She bent a bulge in the grass turf underneath the three, who were huddled behind the bush, clearly in an attempt to stay out of sight, and catapulted them into plain air.

“What are you doing here, twinkle toes?” She demanded to the shock of the boy, who questioned how she knew it was them.

“Don't answer to_ twinkle toes_, it's not manly!” Came the quaking voice of something in the chubby build of a bird. She presumed it was the daemon of the kid.

“_Your _human is the one whose bag matches his belt.” Another daemon, a medium sized canine, remarked. Ah, not twinkle toes’s then, going by the “he”, the bird must have belonged to the other boy of the group. Though the daemon itself sounded as if it had a masculine voice. _A same-gendered daemon_, Toph mused, _not something you see every day._

Twinkle toes started spewing some crazy tale about a swamp and a vision, only to be cut off by one of his companions. “What Aang is trying to say is, he's the Avatar. And if he doesn't master earthbending soon, he won't be able to defeat the Fire Lord.”

Toph failed to see how that was any of her problem, and she told them as much. Swampy visions aside, there were thousands of earth benders throughout the kingdom alone, what gave them the right to just _waltz into her house_ and claim that her spirits-given job was to teach the bratty kid how to earthbend?

Had the group not got on her nerves so much, she might have referred them to her own earthbending teachers - the badgermoles up in the mountains. But after an Earth Rumbling defeat _that was definitely not done with earthbending, now that she knew the boy was the Avatar and was looking to _learn_ earthbending_, and the obnoxious demands, all she had a mind to do was to get them out of here before her cover was blown with her parents.

She really wished she could let them know _how much_ she wanted them gone to resort to playing the most despised card in her hand - the helpless little girl.

“Guards! Guards, help!” She called out in a high, distressed pitch, and in the blink of an (unseeing) eye, she was escorted back into the house by a pair of guards and their dog daemons, while the others searched the premisses for intruders. She had a feeling, however, the Avatar wouldn’t give up so easily.

* * *

"Toph, there's too many of them. We need an earthbender. We need _you_!” The Water Tribe girl called out behind her as her father took her by her hand and lead her away from the arena. True to her words, every single top-tier wrestler she had ever fought banded around the two kids, one of them holding the metal cell that contained the Avatar.

Her father turned around and called out angrily, “my daughter is blind. She is _blind _and _tiny_ and _helpless_ and _fragile_. She cannot help you!”

Every adjective her father described her with hit her like a punch in the gut, the sensation not so different than the rocks she had been pummelled with over the years of fighting in this very same arena. She felt saliva turn into ash in her mouth and yanked her hand away from his grip. _This was what her father truly saw her as._ By no other choice than her own - all those years of lies, being careful of her pretence and cover stories, meticulously constructing a mirage of the obedient, meek, and tame daughter she thought made her parents happy.

“Yes, I can.” She declared. It was time to change things.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she marched towards the lineup of wrestlers. Through the thick cloud of dust, she could feel their every move encoated in the particles of earth floating within her radar. Toph bent slabs and boulders and shards, taking the fighters down one by one as they came at her.

Registering a movement to her side, she felt the largest wrestler making a move towards her and turned to brace herself to go into the defensive. Before he got anywhere near her, however, the Hippo gave a thunderous roar and collapsed as a black rhinoceros charged at his daemon, butting the other animal off the stage and far away from her human, who was incapacitated by the pain of separation.

“Yoyo!” Toph gave a cheer in surprise at the large animal.

“Hello Toph!” The rhino greeted in a boyish voice that was jarring and ill-suited to his large form, he stomped his front leg playfully, “I can’t believe this is what I’ve been missing out on! This is fu— Behind you!”

Her daemon warned abruptly as the first fighter Toph had beaten in Earth Rumble - Headhunter, swung in towards her, his large condor beside him. Toph scoffed to herself as she raise a pillar under the fighter, and catapulted him off the platform, the bird swerving around to circle her human. The airborne tactic had always worked out poorly for Headhunter - his trajectory too predictable, the swinging took too long. What little advantage the fighter gained with Toph’s struggle to sense him in the air had been offset by his insistence on carrying a rock with him at all times.

Jiaheng picked up the sand boa of Xin Fu by his horns and stampeded his way to the edge of the stadium, launching her away and leaving her human to chase after her, concluding the fight. With a swift downward motion of her arms, Toph settled the dust in the air, leaving behind nothing but a clean platform.

Despite her anxiety at revealing her secret to her father, she couldn’t help but grin in triumph when she heard her earthbending master declare that she was the greatest earthbender he’s ever seen. _I could really get used the title_, she thought smugly.

* * *

Her parents did not take it well.

“It’s not that I expected them to, but I thought the _whole_ reason they had treated me as fragile was because they thought I couldn’t protect myself, but now that I’ve proven I’m more than capable, they’re still not accepting of me. It’s almost as if they _want_ me to be helpless and useless all my life!”

The guards Lao Beifong had promised to station outside his daughter’s door had fallen asleep, but Toph felt anything but tired. Restless, she paced back and forth in her room, ranting hotly to a large mole-rat sitting on her bed.

“They’re in denial. It’s hard to reconcile the image of you that you’ve always shown them with what went down today. Besides, even if you weren’t blind, there would be no way they let you fight like that either.” Jiaheng stated as calmly as he could, though his legs twitched in agitation and frustration as well.

_No more Earth Rumble fighting. _The realisation washed over her like an icy bucket of water. No more of the only thing that’s been keeping her sane and alive and free. And in its stead will be hours of tedious confinement. Toph sighed, at least they couldn’t take her earthbending away. She thanked the spirits for that. It was a power that she could always keep close to her heart like a beating life force, a sustenance for her soul where her sight had failed her.

“I worry that they will never be able to.” She said, out loud.

“So what are you going to do about it?” The mole-rat asked gently, sounding clear that he knew about and approved of exactly what his human had been entertaining in her head since the setting of the sun.

“I can’t just _leave_.”

“Why not? You were never one to back down from anything that could give you what you wanted. Plus, you would have been going anyway, wouldn’t you? If mother and father had accepted it and let you teach the Avatar, you would have gone with them. You’re just deferring because you’re scared. But you don’t get scared. You’re Toph, Earth Rumble champion, and you and I, we are unstoppable.”

Toph stood silently in the middle of her room, chewing her bottom lip.

“Besides, the Avatar wouldn’t stand a chance in saving the world without us two.”

“You do have a point there, Yoyo.” She conceded with a chuckle at her daemon’s ability to know exactly what she needed to hear. Mind made up, she tested the door of her room, cracking it open with a creak and stepped over the guards. Pausing in front of her parents’ room as she tiptoed down the wooden corridor, she stilled, and listened to the soft purrs of her mother’s long haired cat and the snores of her father’s mountain goat.

“Will we ever see them again?” She whispered.

“Of course we will. Better to ask forgiveness then than permission now. Let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t we at least leave them a note?

“It’ll just be a trip around the world, this isn’t goodbye. Hurry up before we get caught and ruin our chance.” Her daemon urged, perched on her shoulder. Toph complied and scurried down the hall, the night air pouring into her lungs as she tasted the bittersweet freedom settling on her tongue.

When she caught up with them just as they were about to leave, the lie slipped out of her mouth before she could even register it.

“My dad changed his mind. He said I was free to travel the world.”

She felt Jiaheng tense against her neck as she stated it easily. If he were to ask later, she would have told him that it was better they didn’t feel bad about making her run away or send her back because they were afraid of trouble. But he never did ask, because he knew as well as her that it was because she had wanted it to be true, even just for the split second that the pretence had lasted.

“Well, we'd better get out of here, before your dad changes his mind again.” The older boy accepted, and she knew then that _they knew_, and they understood.

She’s never flown before, never felt the encasing_ darkness_ as she hung at the mercy of an element opposite her own. Her back rested against the wooden saddle, feeling its hardness and nothing beyond that.

She tried hard to concentrate on the Water Tribe girl introducing her new travelling companions, relearning the names she had ignored during dinner because she didn’t think they would be of real consequence. _Katara and Mags and Sokka and Rikki and Aang_ \- without a daemon in the stead of his Avatar powers. She tried not to think about how far down the drop the nearest bit of earth was, or how far in the future she would go home again, or if she even wanted to.

“This is Jiaheng. But I call him Yoyo, I guess you guys can, too.” She said when it was her turn. _And he is all the home I have ever known, he will keep me safe, and I him, and as long as we have each other, we are unstoppable,_ she added to herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the rhino have among the worst eyesight of the animal kingdom, and probably *the* worst in large animals! They rely heavily on their senses of hearing and smell, and cannot tell a person from a tree if they were right in front of their noses (horns) :)


End file.
